Worth: $14.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Fin Sendel, Jule Bowe, Henning Peker, Sira-Anna Faal, Noah Tinwa, Denise M’Baye, Pasquale Aleardi, Martin Umbach, Christian Steyer
Intro:
… for a feature film debut that has such high-concept ideas and creative flair, it is hard not to be charmed by such a labour of love to cinema.
To those who have ever worried about being a side character in their own life, the parallel world that this film inhabits takes those concerns to a truly comical level; a literal ‘cinematic’ world where people are characters in the game of life, and everything is run by a force known only as ‘The Institute’.
Paula Feinmann (Fin Sendel) is a young timid ‘Supporting Character’ studying to become a ‘Main Character’, but she is struggling to generate emotive music to go along with her inspiring monologue. Wanting to prove herself to her Supporting Character Mother (Jule Bowe) and live up to the memories of her ‘archived’ Main Character Father, who was killed during a violent outbreak of the inferior ‘Outtakes’, she must search for her story.
A feature film debut from Sophie Linnenbaum, this German science fiction film is a delightfully bizarre embrace of cinematic conventions. The constant referencing of film techniques could easily become nauseating, but The Ordinaries strikes a fine balance by having fun with the ‘meta’ concept.
The development of this ‘cinematic’ universe is unique and exciting, and Linnenbaum works greatly with a decent budget. The choice to use a 1950s/1960s-inspired look gives the film an even more ‘theatrical’ flavour and fantastical edge to the comically absurd world. When the film abruptly extends into a musical number, this style certainly helps sell the sudden change of tone and genre.
The Ordinaries is a brilliant stylistic cocktail of the surrealism of Charlie Kaufman, the impersonal touch of Yorgos Lanthimos and the absurdist humour of the underappreciated Roy Andersson. Linnenbaum injects a fantastic blend of coldness and humour to the film that hardly falters; for example, a scene with a blind man repeatedly interrogating Paula, so she can help him aim his pump action shotgun right at her in self-defence.
A definite standout in the film’s creativity is the amazing use of a truly bipolar musical score; constantly shifting and stopping and often strictly diegetic. It’s used as a charming way to effectively get across important emotional beats. The film is drenched in visual homages and film jokes with comical winks at the audience, referencing ‘unregistered plot points’ as bar-brawls, and ‘laugh tracks’ as an actual character trait of the weird and colourful personalities occupying this world. Later in the film, a wonderfully tense moment has Paula pursued whilst editing techniques are implemented to great suspenseful effect.
But ultimately, what is this film’s ultimate point? What’s with all the comical delights of name-dropped references? Well, it has to be said, if anything holds the film back from being truly great, it would be that The Ordinaries struggles with those answers. There are a heap of ways that this film could be interpreted, from an indictment of the movie star business to drawing attention to the horrible nature of classism. The film does try to examine the idea that everyone can be important, no matter their status and exposure, but it loses the argument somewhat in all the comic-madness; only to be brought up in an unsatisfactory denouement.
That being said, for a feature film debut that has such high-concept ideas and creative flair, it is hard not to be charmed by such a labour of love to cinema.
